


In My Veins

by Choice



Category: Ed Edd n Eddy
Genre: Eventual Romance, Fluff and Angst, High School, M/M, Multi, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 00:51:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13846587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Choice/pseuds/Choice
Summary: With the onset of high school comes change for the kids of the cul-de-sac.The extent of those changes, however, remain to be seen.





	In My Veins

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic in a very long while, and my first foray into this fandom. Please be kind - though I welcome any and all constructive criticism and/or suggestions for future chapters. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

He could still smell it, caught in the back of his throat - musky with undertones of mossy earth, overpoweringly rich to the point that it was cloying.

 

Making a distressed noise under his breath, Edd swung his arm in a wide arc as he let the aerosol can of disinfectant unleash the sterile, equally-overwhelming yet infinitely more familiar scents of Lysol into the air.

 

It felt like an exorcism. It always did, whenever he got caught up in one of his more vigorous cleaning regimens - like expelling the unclean and the unfamiliar, battling germs and infection and maintaining the sanctity of his space, if only for a little while.

 

Like clockwork, the smell always inevitably returned. But that was what his many cleaning products - his weapons arsenal, he sometimes jokingly thought to himself - was for.

 

Huffing a quiet sigh of relief, Edd carefully wiped his brow free of perspiration as he walked to the recycling to dispose of the now-empty can. His yellow rubber glove gave a reassuring squeak into the cavity of his ear with the movement. From there, it was a matter of carefully peeling off his clothing, slightly sweaty with the exertion of his near-daily cleaning ritual, placing them where they belonged in the half-full hamper and switching the shower on.

 

As he waited for the water to come to temperature, Edd caught an unsolicited eyeful of his own pallid, knobby body in the bathroom mirror. Grimacing ever so slightly, he took in the almost-sickly hue of his skin in the harsh fluorescent lighting: his cheeks, suffused with uneven patches of ruddy color, his bright cobalt eyes, and his unruly ink-black head of hair were the only pops of color against an otherwise-monochromatic landscape.

 

As surely as one knew that the sun would rise and set with the commencement and close of each day, Edd felt the bone-deep conviction that while his mind might be exceedingly exceptional, his physical form would always be lacking. Embarrassingly so.

 

In places where he’d caught (usually unintentional) glimpses of growing patches of hair on other boys in the locker room, he was barren. Where muscles rose like growing islands on even Jimmy, an ever-avid dancer and thespian, he himself was an uninspiring plateau, all flatness and jutting angles. Even the telltale jut of a developing laryngeal prominence (colloquially, his mind supplied, an _Adam’s apple_ ) was largely missing from Edd’s features.

 

It was, he had to admit, a relief to not have to worry about grooming and maintaining all sorts of unwarranted body hair. Just the thought made him shudder in repulsion. And muscles, well, he didn’t need those as much as the well-conditioned synapses of his brain. He was also honest enough with himself to admit that it wasn’t a complete travesty having to look to others to admire the sheer physical strength of a toned male body. (He wouldn’t go so far as to admit _whose_ bodies were more aesthetically pleasing, but he digressed.)

 

The steam was well and truly billowing from the shower at this point, and Edd slid inside with a bone-deep, satisfied sigh. It felt like coming down from a high, his sluggish limbs feeling particularly noodle-like as he sudsed up a fresh washcloth with his body wash.

 

Letting his eyes slide shut, Edd took pleasure in this equally-important process of cleaning himself off after a very in-depth afternoon cleaning session. He relished in the pounding of the white-hot water against his skin deep into his musculature, and the way it permeated all the way through his thick mane of hair into his skull.

 

Defenses down, he allowed his mind’s eye to wander where it was wont to, as of late, with only slight reluctance: to sun-kissed skin with the most breathtaking examples of _triceps brachii_ he had ever witnessed and that absolutely devastating Iliac Furrow. Then there were the crowning jewels of those deliciously bulging deltoids, like the ridiculous plastic shoulder pads they sometimes bore during football practice but infinitely stronger - impermeable in a primal way that had Edd’s pulse rocketing and his blood abandoning his usually-rational mind for the greener pastures of his nether regions.

 

“Oh dear,” he breathed, propping himself up against the cool white tiles with only the slightest grimace (they were just cleaned this morning, and he would spray them down once more before he left the shower).

 

He hadn’t noticed his hand drifting ever-southward until the rough, pebbly texture of his washcloth ghosted unwittingly over his glans, which twitched and bobbed in response. A quiet whimper bubbled deep in his throat, and he gently ran the cloth along his growing… _interest_ as his mind raced ever-forward.

 

A proudly jutted chin, thicker lips oftentimes curled in a wicked smirk (and, in more unguarded moments, twitched in a phantasm of genuine amusement or angled downward in quiet teenage angst). Hazel-green eyes that hearkened to the fertile earth and, whenever they deemed to grace him with a mere glance, left his stomach swooping in the general vicinity of the floor. That fiery personality reflected in that iconic head of hair, now worn in a finely-crafted pompadour like a proud lion’s mane.

 

That baritone which could boom like ominous thunder when provoked, or captivate one’s attention and caress the senses like verbal velvet against one’s unworthy eardrums.

 

And the sheer, barely restrained _power_ lurking within those twitching tendons, that towering form, deep into the very skeletal structure of the boy within which all of these attributes originated...!

 

Letting go of all pretense, Edd took himself in hand with a guilty moan. This was becoming almost as much a part of his daily routine as ever, as embarrassed as he was to admit it to even himself.

 

At least _one_ aspect of himself could be considered normal, where teenage males were concerned.

 

The constant flow of water along his skin made for a smooth glide as his hand ran up and down his length, giving intermittent squeezes here and there in symphony with the direction of his rapidly-devolving thoughts.

 

With the passage of time came the transformation and - in some cases - the cessation of the various relationships existing within their little cul-de-sac. While he still considered himself friends with Ed and Eddy, the ties between them weren’t as strong as they had been during the plotting, scheming days of their youth. Likewise, the enmity between himself and most of the others - feeble at best - were all but nonexistent now.

 

That wasn’t to say that they all enjoyed a chumminess rivaling that of the most over-the-top, cheesy Disney movies. The Kanker Sisters, for instance, were especially painful to deal with ever since the Edd’s had made it clear that they had absolutely no interest in any of the three overbearing women.

 

(Thankfully, Lee and May had all but dropped out of Peach Creek High at this point and much to Edd's relief, Marie was content with simmering, dark glares shot from across a room over direct confrontation. Any accidental glance in the direction of one of the Kankers left him feeling cold and dirty, and he was glad to pretend that they did not exist.)

 

Edd felt more and more like a planet set a considerable distance apart from everyone else, a quiet observer on the outskirts of the social orbit that inevitably pulled and wove them all in time to a beat that only they could interpret.

 

While the Edd’s lost the camaraderie that had often put them in the middle of trouble when they were younger, Rolf, Nazz, and Kevin in particular seemed to be even more connected than ever, to the point where they sometimes seemed to function as a solid unit.

 

They had also welcomed two new faces into their social microcosm: a jade-haired and flamboyant youth named Nathan - or _Nat_ , as his friends were wont to refer to him as - and Jemma, a formidable junior and the unofficial captain of their county’s young women’s wrestling league. Despite only knowing the other three for the span of a single school year now, the two teens shared a deep and palpable bond with the others that Edd, in his more vulnerable and lonelier moments, envied.

 

So close were the five that they were often referred to as a pack - more often than not, _Kevin’s_ pack.

 

The way some kids would say it - _Kevin’s pack_ \- sounded almost reverent to Edd’s ears, not thrown around like a playful moniker but treated with a certain measure of respect.

 

It was a bit odd, Edd thought to himself, but then again, a lot of the social hierarchies and mannerisms of his peers seemed alien to him so he took it with a grain of salt and dismissed it as another One of Those Things He, A Social Outcast, Would Never Understand (OTTHAS OWNU).

 

And the way Kevin said it - _his pack_ \- when he thought no one except his fellow comrades were within hearing vicinity (another perk of being something of a wallflower)...

 

Edd’s breathing stuttered in his throat, and his busy hand gave an involuntary spasm.

 

There were layers to that sonorous voice that Edd found he could decipher with an almost academic fervor. In English literature, for instance, he could discern that Kevin's apparent disinterest was merely a front for a deep appreciation for the literary arts, all from the cadence of the other boy’s speech whenever he happened to be called upon to present his insights during class. Likewise, the halting gait of his voice, which lifted into softer and insecure crests of higher pitches signified Kevin’s general discomfort with mathematics.

 

And during their shared PE class, the deeper and commanding tones that were issued forth were inspired by Kevin’s confidence in and familiarity of sports and physical exertion. Beyond the fact that Kevin was always selected as one of the team captains, his natural leadership was exceedingly apparent in the compartmentalized style of speech he tended towards during this class period. The abrupt start-stop punctuation of his voice was like a hailstorm of formidable bullets, permeating even the most impenetrable facades and encouraging even gangly little Edd to give it - dodgeball, soccer, baseball, whatever _it_ happened to be in that instance - his all whenever he found himself on Kevin’s team.

 

That said, the with the verbal evocation of those particular words - _my pack_ \- from those captivating lips came an almost foundational transmutation that Edd found himself absolutely fascinated by. A heretofore unknown isotope was introduced in the terrain of Kevin’s rich voice whenever he referred to his friends as _his_. It was…

 

Edd breathed in deeply, the mixture of arousal and longing almost physically painful in the midst of his introspection.

 

It was the solid bedrock that withstood the test of time. It was the imposition of gravity upon the earth, and the manipulation of the moon upon the tides. It was a primordial rhythm of one’s body which kept the heart beating, the lungs ever-expanding and contracting, the body constantly replenishing itself.

 

It was instinctually felt within Edd’s being, and yet just beyond the comprehension of his rational mind.

 

And with that utterance of _my pack_ from those absolutely forbidden lips Edd found himself uncharacteristically yearning to be tethered to that possessive pronoun and encompassed within the embrace of that equally-dominating collective noun.

 

To be called _mine_ by that frustratingly distracting -

 

Edd huffed an almost-pained moan as he reached a unsatisfactory climax in the now-cooling water.

 

Like clockwork, the thick shroud of keening loss, of lacking something inexplicably unknown yet intrinsically necessary settled over his skin along with the prickle of goose-bumps.

 

It was just another part of his routine, he reasoned with quiet resignation.

 

Just another day.


End file.
